Hospitality and retail run on thin margins and constant pressure. The systems behind them should not add to that. We built fast, using AI as a development multiplier, and we have real customers depending on what we shipped. Now we are at the inflection point: moving from founder-led velocity to a platform that enterprise retail can rely on. We need an experienced Lead engineer to act as the CTO’s right hand. Someone who can read the codebase for what it is, decide what needs to change, and set the engineering bar for everyone who comes after.
What you will do
- Own architectural decisions across the full backend stack: NestJS 11, PostgreSQL 17, BullMQ workers, Redis, and the AWS ECS infrastructure underneath.
- Audit and refactor AI-generated code where structure matters more than speed. This is not housekeeping. It is one of the most important things you will do in the first three months.
- Drive the retail-ready milestone: performance, tenant isolation, reliability under load.
- Integrate with external systems: POS providers, payment platforms, notification services. Each has its own quirks and failure modes, and the list keeps growing.
- Instrument and own observability: structured logging with Datadog APM traces, custom metrics for the things dashboards do not catch by default.
- Cover the frontend when it matters. We will have a dedicated frontend engineer, but you understand the full stack. If the FE is busy, you pick it up and keep moving. You are never the bottleneck.
Stack
You will thrive here if
- You have made real architectural decisions in production: not just picking a library, but scoping and owning systems that others build on.
- You are fluent in TypeScript. NestJS experience is ideal. If you have shipped at this level in Go, Java, Python, or C# and are ready to switch stacks, that works too. Type discipline matters more than language loyalty.
- You understand when AI moves you at 10x speed and, more importantly, when it produces code that looks correct but is not. You know how to tell the difference without being dogmatic about either.
- You have worked in multi-tenant systems and understand where isolation breaks down under real load.
- You understand the frontend well enough to not be blocked by it. You are not a full-time UI engineer, but you can pick up a Next.js task when the team needs you to.
- You can set technical direction without becoming a bottleneck. Other engineers should move faster because you are here, not slower.
Bonus points
- Production experience refactoring AI-generated debt in a real codebase.
- Terraform modules written and maintained, not just read.
- Multi-tenant SaaS isolation patterns you have designed or improved.
- Something built on the Anthropic or OpenAI API. Anything you can show us.
What we offer
- €6,500–8,000 gross/month, reviewed regularly as we grow.
- Equity Package. Options granted at our Seed round, with vesting backdated to your join date. You hit the one-year cliff immediately upon grant.
- Total ownership. You set the technical direction and own it end-to-end. No layers, no committees.
- Work directly with the founders. You will know why every product decision was made, and help make the next ones.
- Real users and real industry. HoReCa is messy and tangible. You will see your architectural decisions running in actual restaurants.
- Modern stack, no legacy. NestJS 11, Prisma 6, PostgreSQL 17, Next.js 15, AWS ECS. Nothing inherited.
- Hybrid in Vilnius. Office days and home days, whatever shape fits the work.
Perks
The AI toolbelt
We don't gatekeep the tools that make you faster. Top tier of every AI on the market, no approval hell. If a better one ships next week, we add it.
Tech & tools
The gear you'd buy yourself
Whatever you need to do the work well, on your desk day one. No budget theatre, no asking around, no forms. Replaced before it starts getting in the way.
Health & gym
Health insurance or a gym subscription
Private insurance in the tier that actually covers things, or a gym subscription if that matters more to you. Your call.
Growth
A budget for getting better
We're not at flying-you-to-conferences scale yet, and we'll say so. But anything that makes you a better engineer gets a yes, not a form.
Rest
Real time off
Well above the Lithuanian minimum. We trust you to take what you need, when you need it. Burnout is a planning failure, not a virtue.
Team & culture
Lunch together, every week
Free weekly team lunch. Quarterly off-sites to get out of the day-to-day, stay aligned, and actually talk to each other.
Flexibility
Your day is yours
Flexible hours within the hybrid frame. Sick days are sick days, no apologies. We trust you to manage your own time.
The stage we are at
We are small, product-first, and at the moment where the codebase needs to grow up. Real customers, real revenue, real deadlines. The backend works and serves real organizations today. But the work ahead, isolation, reliability, scale, documentation, structure, that is what this role is about.
You do not need to know every piece from day one. You need strong judgment, a high bar, and the confidence to say “this needs to be rewritten” and then do it.
One honest thing
A meaningful part of this codebase was written at speed, with AI doing a significant share of the work. Some of it is genuinely good. Some of it is structurally fragile in ways that are not immediately obvious. This role exists partly to find it, decide what to do with it, and raise the floor across the board. If you are expecting a clean, well-documented system to step into, this is not the right place. If the idea of taking something from rough to right, and setting the bar for everyone who comes after, is what gets you out of bed, this is exactly the right moment to be here.
Ready to apply?
Apply now -> and walk through a few quick questions. It takes about five minutes, and you can drop in links to anything you’re proud of. Links beat paragraphs.
Prefer email? career@backoffice.lt works too.